We dont have many A-frames of any sort here in Australia, much less tiki bars - so here's a pic of my '61 Holden wagon at the beach If you've had a few drinks the plate almost reads Hawaii _________________www.kustomkultureaustralia.com

So I'm definitely bending the requirements on this one and even though I'm really loving the current pictures of Tiki Central members and their Fin-mobiles, I thought this should go here - it's the long gone Millionaires Club in Beverly Hills on La Cienega's Restaurant Row in 1963, next door to the Captain's Table. It's not an A-Frame but I'm gonna call it an Octopus entrance, which reminds me of the Sahara's Don the Beachcomber Huts.

On 2011-10-28 16:55, Luckydesigns wrote:I'd be interested to see anything 1964 and newer with fins.

I guess it would depend on your definition of tailfins. The Cadillac Eldorado had rear fenders that stuck up above the trunk lid up until 1970. The 1971 model still had seperate "fins" but they were lower than the trunk. There were some assorted foreign cars (Russian, etc) that had fins up into the 70s because they didn't redesign their old 1960 tooling but they don't count

Great contrast between those two cars in the lot. The roadster looks like it could fit in the trunk of the other one. I'd expect to see either a shriner, a clown, or a gorilla driving that little car, or maybe all 3.

Sounds like a joke - a shriner, a clown and a gorilla walk into a bar in Beverly Hills. Shriner says, "Is this your gorilla?" Clown says, "Gorilla? They told me it was a Doberman!"

On 2011-10-30 15:53, Bora Boris wrote:Not beng a car guy at all and also being too lazy to look it up what year did Fins officially begin and when did they stop?

Well, this is certainly a matter of opinion. Are you going to call any protuberance on the back of a car a "tailfin?" If so, Cadillac had some bumps on the back in the late 40's, but if you want to know who exemplifies the true Jet Age styling, I say it was Virgil Exner (cue photo of Exner with tailfin and jets):

He created the "Forward Look," a corporate-wide design theme for Chrysler (including Dodge, DeSoto, Plymouth, and Imperial) from 1956-1961. He's also credited with causing the radical redesign of 1959 General Motors cars when GM designers got a sneak peak of the 1957 Chrysler products and trashed everything on the drawing board.

Well, we had a great unexpected run of Tiki owner/operated WHITE mid-century mod cars here, guys, that was neat...and then the ads!

And I love all the other related images, too, so in the spirit of general context, I have this to ad:

Quote:

On 2011-10-31 01:04, aquarj wrote:Great contrast between those two cars in the lot. The roadster looks like it could fit in the trunk of the other one. I'd expect to see either a shriner, a clown, or a gorilla driving that little car, or maybe all 3.

Actually, the kind of guy who would drive these Austin-Healey/MG sports cars at the time would have looked something like this:

That kinda car and pipe smoking went hand in hand. The look denoted an individualist, a suave and distinguished but modern man, such as this...

...often an advertising exec or creative, almost bohemian but not Beatnik, not necessarily a ladies' man, also someone who could have a family: